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WASHINGTON — A new online app called
College Abacus is making it easier for
students and their families to get estimates in advance of how much financial aid colleges and
universities will give so that they can compare schools for costs.

It comes at an opportune time, since the shutdown of many government programs because of the
political standoff over the federal budget has disabled College Navigator, a tool also designed to
help families figure out college costs and operated by the Department of Education.

College Abacus is a free, one-stop shop. It taps the net-price calculators at three schools a
student selects. Then, based on personal information entered once into College Abacus, the site
retrieves the estimates. More schools can be entered, three at a time.

The federal government’s College Navigator website offers a rougher estimate. For each school,
it will give estimated net prices for several income levels.

Referring to a popular travel search engine, co-founder Abigail Seldin calls College Abacus the
kayak.com of net-price calculators. It takes 10 minutes or more to copy financial information from
a tax return and answer other questions on many net-price calculators.

College Abacus lets a user log in via Facebook, Google-plus or Twitter and save the data so it
has to be entered only once.

The free service isn’t without glitches.

In some cases, as when schools take their calculators down for revisions, College Abacus can’t
get results. Seldin said her staff of 10 checks the school websites to make sure they’re working
and that it should take no more than a week before the estimate will be produced on another
try.

Another issue with the estimates is the quality of the net-price calculators.

Many schools use a simple calculator developed by the Department of Education, rather than ones
developed by the College Board and others that ask more-detailed financial questions. One important
question the Department of Education calculators don’t ask is the amount of parents’ assets.

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, a form required of all students who hope to get
financial aid, asks about assets, and schools use FAFSA information when they decide on aid
amounts.

College Abacus, in the details section of the estimates report, tells users what type of
net-price calculator a school offers.